Aopen AK77-333)

[Chronic321]

After about a month of research in designing my first new set up since my present K6-3 400Mhz I think I'm going to go with the Aopen Ak77-333. Mainly because of its low cost and support of USB 2.0 (I don't need RAID). However, I have several questions

-What do you guys think about the Ak77-333 (Strenghts, Weaknesses)

-What do you guys think about the quality of onboard sound (Can be specific to Ak77 or in general)

-When is the Thoroughbred going to be avaliable to end users!

Thanks

 

[Chronic321]

Anybody?

 

[flawedexistence]

I'll take a stab at this one....Aopen boards are built by ALI who also manufacture a variety of other components. Their mobos until recently have been aimed more at the OEM sector. They are usually a bit short on the bios settings requested by the enthusiast market. This has been changing however. Aopen boards are generally very stable and of high quality. Performance wise, they sacrifice some speed for stability, but so what? As far as bottlenecks in a system go, the mobo is probably the least of your worries! I have a friend who has built a number of systems using Aopen boards exclusively. He has never had a bad word to say about them........but he doesn't overclock. I think the boards represent a good price/performance value.

 

[Booster]

What flawedexistence said. If you don't OC, that Aopen moboard is excellent. I, however, would go for an ASUS mobo myself b/c they usually OC well and are so very stable. And cost only a few $ more than the rest.

 

[Chronic321]

Since the Ak77 333 uses the Kt333 chipset then running at a 166 mHZ bus while lowering the multiplier respectively and using PC2700 would not be considered over clocking right? From what I've read this board oc's very well and the watch dog function that Aopen provides has been praised by overclockers. Thoughts?

-Thanks